A Sunday Walk Around the Blogs

This week instead of featuring posts or articles from various places around the Internet, I wanted to highlight several blogs I try to keep track of.

Planting the Seeds is written by Michael Hait, a certified genealogist whose specialties include the Mid-Atlantic states and African-American genealogy. Michael generally uses his blog to discuss professional issues, but anyone who would like to grow as a researcher will find much useful information, including a series of discussions on methodologies.

Finally, I wanted to highlight a very new blog by a genealogist who literally cut her teeth on historical records. Rachal Mills Lennon is a Southern genealogist whose blog is linked to her professional web site, Finding Southern Ancestors. Rachal’s blog has only three posts (so far!), but all three are excellent examples of how to solve difficult Southern research problems. Two of those three place Nancy (Justice) Wade with her correct husband using records from the old Pendleton and Spartanburg Districts in South Carolina, localities from which many Rabun County families came.

I hope y’all take the time to poke around on these blogs. They are all well worth the reading time.

I thought about mentioning Rachal’s parentage, but didn’t because she’s a solid researcher in her own right. On the other hand, there’s no doubt that her parents contributed a great deal to her career choice…something I (for one) am eternally thankful for, since her research area overlaps my own. What a boon to have such a great researcher digging through the same records!

And, you’re welcome. I wouldn’t mention your blog if it weren’t interesting. And that’s a high compliment! 🙂

Very true about Rachal – and anyone who has read her published case studies (from NGSQ, now also published on her website), as well as the three brilliant posts she has already included on her blog, will certainly recognize her superior skills. And of course, she has also been CG for nearly thirty years, so her unpublished research does get periodically reviewed.

On the other hand, we are, after all, genealogists, so why ignore her ancestry? 🙂

Very true, all. But I protest on the ignoring part. Give me a little credit for alluding to her heritage with the first sentence of that paragraph, wouldja? That’s one thing about genealogists. We’re picky on the details, eh? 😉

By the way, I am very much looking forward to hearing you speak at Samford this summer.

Yes, and I’m so excited! I’ve been looking forward to attending the IGHR for nearly a decade and have never been able to before. And then to take that particular course with all those great speakers. You included! 🙂 It’s going to be great.

I’m as excited to attend the course as I am to be teaching in the course. Mark Lowe and Linda Geiger are both spectacular genealogists. And I would be remiss not to mention Debbie Abbott, who is herself a great researcher and lecturer.

I had the opportunity to meet Mark at the FGS conference in Knoxville a while back. Very nice man, and a great speaker. Linda I’ve met before. She’s very big in the genealogy circuit here in Georgia, for good reason. I’m hoping that as my second major educational gambit this year, I can attend Mark and Linda’s Regional In-depth Genealogical Studies Alliance in the Atlanta area (http://rigsalliance.org/).

Debbie Abbott I had never heard of (or, that I could remember), but I have no doubt given the caliber of the other teachers at IGHR that she’s a fine researcher. And she will speak on topics that interest me very much…